Houlihan's

Houlihan's is a chain which gives you a little bit of a lack of originality but you can expect consistency. I stopped by to meet a friend who is a fan of their happy hour. Lots to choose from at very reasonable prices. We had a great waitress who was very busy but never left us waiting.

Since my last post a few months ago, Houlihan's has progressivly gotten better. My first time back was with a friend and we sat in the bar area. Our waitress was super nice (and not high! :) and even though she was busy, we always had our drinks full! Our food was great and the experience made me excited to go back again!

I got so excited that I actually went back a week later! This time was with a co-worker and we sat at the bar. Our bartender/waitress was also very nice and our drinks stayed full.

Needless to say, Houlihan's has improved and I really do appreciate it. Hopefully this particular location will keep up the great work so I can call this my favorite local hang out spot once again!

If my boyfriend and I weren't young and broke, we would easily move along from this place.  However, we can't look passed the specials and happy hour, so we do revisit on occasion when we just want to get out of the apartment.

The first time we had ever been was back in 2010.  We met some friends for drinks late Saturday night and had awesome service.  The waitress was very friendly, attentive and joked around with us, really making us feel welcomed and comfortable.

Each time after that, the service has been terrible.  No one ever seems like they want to be there.  One Saturday night, while we were there with a group of about 8 people, we even overheard our waiter try to pawn us off on to another server and say, 'You can take them because I do not want to be here at all.'  He was not discrete about it and was only standing a few feet away when he said it.  We ended up leaving shortly after that because we felt like we were bothering him.  

A few months later, we went back.  We went around 10pm.  We just wanted to have a little date night, get some drinks and split a couple of appetizers.  They were fairly busy when we arrived and stayed consistent throughout the hour we were there.  We were acknowledged by our server right away who brought out his beer and my mixed drink.  We told her we wanted to look over the menu for a couple of minutes, but we definitely intended to order food.  She had two other tables who seemed like they were finishing up.  One of those tables was all good-looking men in their twenties.  I noticed she walked right passed our tables about 5 or 6 times to check on them before we had to interrupt her to place our order.  By this time, our drinks were almost gone.  When she took our order, she didn't even offer refills.  While we waited, I noticed that she paid more and more attention to the table of guys.  Being the young attractive waitress that she was, clearly she was just trying to milk them for a tip .  However, that does not justify neglecting your other customers.  Our food came out in a timely matter but she never checked on us while we ate.  After we were almost finished eating, instead of walking by to check on us or to offer us our FIRST refill, she simply just dropped off our check without saying a word and made her way back over to the table of guys.  At this point, I was really irritated and we both agreed she was going to receive a poor tip.  I used to be a waitress, so I tend to be pretty understanding if my server is busy.  But she was blatantly ignoring us and then pretty much kicked us out when we had full intention to order more from the menu.  I ended up leaving her a terrible tip, because that is what she deserved.  I later emailed the manager about the poor service and never even heard anything back.  

We recently ordered food from there again, but this time we got carry-out.  Their food is good, but we agreed to just stick with carry-out from now on because we don't need to deal with that kind of service.  Not sure if we will even do that again though, because they managed to mess up my boyfriend's bacon cheese burger by forgetting the bacon.  

Why would we continue to go when the employees have no desire to make their customer's happy?  I don't feel welcomed there and have yet to experience friendly service (with the exception of my first visit almost 3 years ago).  This place could be really awesome.  They have a great atmosphere and seems like a really laid back place.  But better training definitely needs to happen.